Cascade Investment
Cascade Investment is the private holding company that manages Bill Gates's personal fortune, run since 1994 by chief investment officer Michael Larson from Kirkland, Washington. Water is a rare thread in its vast portfolio: (don't) Waste Water tracks one water company, Allonnia, and rates Cascade's water commitment One-Off as of 2026.
Compiled by Antoine Walter, (don't) Waste Water, from official filings and direct intelligence in Leviathan.
The take
Cascade Investment is the quiet machine behind one of the world's largest private fortunes. Bill Gates set it up in 1994 and handed the keys to one man, Michael Larson, who has run it ever since as a single-member company, which means there are no outside investors, no fund to raise, and no committee of limited partners (the backers who fund a normal VC) to answer to, just Gates's capital and Larson's discretion. Cascade is a family office, not a venture fund, and it buys whatever Larson's long-horizon view likes, from Canadian National Railway to Four Seasons hotels to the water and hygiene giant Ecolab.
Cascade rarely talks about water, and the numbers say why. In (don't) Waste Water's Leviathan database it shows up as a One-Off backer, a single water company across the two water deals on record, and it has never led a round. That one company is Allonnia, a synthetic-biology startup spun out of Ginkgo Bioworks to break down industrial waste and clean contaminated water with engineered microbes, which Cascade backed alongside General Atlantic, Battelle and Viking Global Investors, the kind of patient, deep-pocketed co-investors a Gates vehicle keeps company with.
Cascade Investment is the rare name in this directory that is not chasing water at all. For an investor scanning the water field, the read is simple: water turns up here only when it rides inside a bigger industrial or climate bet, the way Allonnia does, or inside a public holding like Ecolab. Expect Cascade's next brush with water to arrive the same way, as a by-product of Larson's hunt for durable, real-economy assets, not a deliberate water strategy.
Water Commitment Score
Compiled from official filings, third-party records, and direct intelligence from investors and founders, in Leviathan · recomputed monthly · as of Jun 2026.
How they invest
Portfolio · 1 water companies
Invests alongside
Highlighted = profiled on (don't) Waste Water.
Frequently asked
- What does Cascade Investment invest in?
- Cascade Investment is Bill Gates's private holding company, so its portfolio spans public equities, real estate and private companies across rail, hospitality, agriculture, food and industrials, including stakes such as Canadian National Railway, Four Seasons and Ecolab. In water it is a rare backer; (don't) Waste Water tracks one water company, the bioremediation startup Allonnia.
- Who runs Cascade Investment?
- Cascade Investment is run by Michael Larson, its chief investment officer since Bill Gates created the firm in 1994. Larson directs all investing for Gates and the Gates Foundation Trust from Kirkland, Washington, with a small team and no outside investors, because Cascade is a single-member company wholly owned by Gates.
- Is Cascade Investment a venture capital fund?
- Cascade Investment is not a venture capital fund. Cascade is a single-member family office that deploys Bill Gates's own capital rather than money raised from limited partners, so it has no fixed fund size, vintage or investment period. It invests opportunistically across asset classes, and water surfaces only occasionally, as with Allonnia.
- Is Cascade Investment the same as Cascade Asset Management?
- No. Cascade Investment, L.L.C. is Bill Gates's Kirkland, Washington holding company. Cascade Asset Management is an unrelated IT-equipment recycling firm in Madison, Wisconsin. Several companies share the Cascade name; only the Gates-controlled Cascade Investment is the water backer profiled here, through its Allonnia investment.